FRIENDSTER IS OFFICIALLY DEAD

For quite some time now, there have been rumors that the social networking site (SNS) called Friendster is dead. Now however, rumors become reality as incontrovertible facts of Friendster’s death is made official: IT IS DEAD. There.

 While Friendster can be hailed as one of the first SNS’s that appeared on the web, it has over the years failed to keep with the pace of technology and the insatiable thirst of young people to get something new. If it should still exist today, it should be somewhere within the piles of old obituaries. SNS history has three ages: the “Ice Age“, the “Melt Age“, and the “Sunny Age“. (All coined by me!). Today in the Sunny Age of SNS, Friendster has successfully remained frozen with very few changes to its “natural state”, preserving much of what it was originally during the Ice Age –which is quite a feat considering the amount of technology and new features available on the web. For this feat, we should Congratulate Friendster. Congratulations Friendster! Okay, enough.

The problem with Friendster is that in today’s fast changing society driven by technology, it is very easy to be labeled “primitive“, and Friendster, with all its access to that technology, has failed to ulitilize technology’s potential and has thus been appropriated such title. Among these technology and features that were not utilized are texting, minigames, microblogging and importation of blogs, auto contact generation, visual text confirmation for security, and a lot more. More importantly, it has failed to catch the attention of the youth who are the major driving force of the internet market.

In stark contrast to Friendster, other SNS’s have incorporated texting as a major security feature to ensure that all accounts have actual people accountable to them (not autos or bots). Before being able to register completely, it would send a confirmation code to your mobile phone which you should subsequently type to confirm registration.
Another simple yet effective security measure is the visual text confirmation in which one is required to retype the obscured letters shown in an image. This is done to ensure actual human activity — only actual people can recognize the letters in the image; robots or other automated programs will not be able to bypass this “checkpoint” since they will not be able to “see” images.

Speaking of security, Friendster has been a celebrated host to quite a number of bugs, glitches, viruses, poseurs, and hackers, the most recent of which is a problem encountered by 99% of its users when they either involuntarily sent or received unsolicited comments from hacked users promoting pornography. A few weeks before that, Friendster temporarily lost its database “due to power outage” in the area in California where it is based. Friendster has also proven to have weak filters and protection against pornography, especially external infiltration, hence, the aforementioned.

Other features that are missed by Friendster which caused its boredom image are minigames applications as well as microblogs and the universality of blogging (by means of importation from one blog platform to another; Friendster although it offers a blog platform, does not allow importation or exportation of blog entries from platform to platform). This expansion from a mere SNS to a multiplicity of functions is key to keep people visiting the site. As acknowledged by a friend, “Facebook is more than just a networking site. I can play games (with my friends)! It’s a corny-fun way to waste your time.” Although it may sound very unproductive, “wasting time” is a multi-billion dollar industry mainly powered by students who consider it their second life apart from studying.

I don’t want to make this “The 100 and 1 Things Friendster Failed to do That’s Why it Died” entry, but I am sure that would also be accurate. The fact remains that Friendster is dead, and while you might still keep an account there, I suggest that deleting it would be most appropriate, don’t even save for sentimental purposes (your other “friends” there would have accounts on other SNS’s anyway). The best way to handle the burden of sentimentality is NOT to dispose of your sentiment, but to dispose of the OBJECT of your sentiment immediately. Believe me, it works. IF still not convinced, let me tell you a secret: 90% of all accounts in friendster are INACTIVE. Meaning, these accounts have not been logged into for more than three months, or either these have been logged into but not have not had any activity like sending messages, comments, updating profiles, uploading photos etc.

It’s not a question of WHY leave Friendster, but rather, it’s more of WHY NOT leave Friendster, an SNS that has continuously failed to give you quality service you deserve, has abused your account by neglecting security, has disrespected your privacy (oh those relentless emails depsite the fact that you disabled that mailing function!) and has been outpaced by other better SNS’s in terms of service, features, security, and network. I am not killing Friendster; it is already dead. You have already paid enough respects to its funeral by staying on, but now delete, delete that Friendster account. Three.Two.One.Click!